In 2019, black and brown journalists will continue to leave predominantly white news organizations that undervalue and underpay for our work. Journalists of color and queer journalists will challenge the value of legacy organizations considered prestige brands who refuse to make room for diverse voices, even as they lift ideas from writers of color and queer culture without crediting them.
We will not apply to “diversity fellowships” that ask a single person of color to do the work of five journalists and an editor. We will call out those news and publishing organizations who brag about their “diversity hires” and we will point to their attrition rates for journalists of color.
We will create our own spaces. We have to. We often do not feel safe in our workplaces, walking an invisible line between job security and self-respect. We will search for ways to thrive, not just survive.
More journalists of color and queer journalists will establish platforms in new and emerging outlets — run by us. Funding mechanisms like Patreon and Pactio will help pay some of the bills.
In 2019, we will still write and delete draft tweets, still ask ourselves: Should I bite my tongue to keep my job, or say something to keep my sanity?
Seema Yasmin is cofounder of the Survival Kit for Journalists of Color and a former staff writer at The Dallas Morning News.
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Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
AX Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news